[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6775]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             END HUNGER NOW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, this is farm bill week. Today, the Senate 
Agriculture Committee is marking up their version of the farm bill, and 
tomorrow the House Agriculture Committee will do the same. Although one 
bill is written by a Republican and the other is written by a Democrat, 
these two bills have one thing in common: they make hunger worse in 
America.
  There are 50 million hungry Americans; 17 million are kids. Yet the 
Senate is going to mark up a bill that cuts over $4 billion from SNAP, 
our Nation's main antihunger program. But that cut pales in comparison 
to the cuts included in H.R. 1947, the House farm bill.
  Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we are going to mark up a farm bill that 
includes a $20 billion cut in SNAP--$20 billion. Mr. Speaker, at a time 
when we have 50 million hungry Americans, at a time when we have 17 
million hungry kids, a Republican-led Congress is going to mark up a 
farm bill with $20 billion cuts in SNAP.
  Mr. Speaker, we were elected to solve problems and help people, not 
make things worse. We were elected to help make lives better. We were 
elected to do the right thing. Cutting SNAP, making it harder for 
hungry Americans to put food on their tables, is the wrong thing. 
Taking $20 billion out of this program will do real harm to Americans 
who simply are trying to make ends meet.
  Now, there are some in this House, some on the Agriculture Committee, 
who say this is about reducing error rates in the program, that this is 
good getting at fraud. Well, let me remind them that SNAP has one of 
the lowest error rates, if not the lowest error rates, in the Federal 
Government. That is something that we should be proud of, and it is 
something that we should celebrate.
  Mr. Speaker, these cuts do not get at fraud. These cuts do not make 
the program more efficient. These cuts don't help reduce or end hunger 
in America. These cuts in this bill will make things worse. That's 
because the cuts in this bill will kick 2 million people off of SNAP. 
That's 2 million hungry Americans who currently rely on SNAP to help 
feed themselves and their families, and that's 2 million low-income 
Americans who are having trouble making ends meet.
  These cuts will cause 850,000 households to see their SNAP benefit 
reduced by $90 a month--$90 a month. That's a big cut for poor families 
struggling to get by.
  The cuts in this bill will cause 210,000 children to lose access to 
their free school meals. These 210,000 poor children currently receive 
free school meals because their parents can't afford to pay for their 
meals. But the cuts in this bill will result in 210,000 losing access 
to free school meals.
  This bill even cuts the nutrition education program, a program that 
is designed to help educate SNAP beneficiaries about how to buy and 
prepare more nutritious foods. Imagine cutting this critical education 
program while obesity and access to unhealthy food is on the rise.
  To put this in proper context, these cuts would come on top of an 
across-the-board cut in SNAP that every recipient will experience 
starting on November 1, 2013. Because SNAP has been used as an ATM to 
offset other worthy programs, a family of four will already be seeing 
their SNAP benefit cut by an average of $25.
  So, to recap, not only will we see automatic cuts in SNAP this 
November, the House farm bill will make things worse by cutting $20 
billion additionally from the program. This simply cannot stand.
  Tomorrow, during the farm bill markup, I will offer an amendment that 
will restore these cuts. I hope that all my colleagues on the 
Agriculture Committee will vote for my amendment, and, if it fails, I 
hope they'll vote against the farm bill.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot just indiscriminately make hunger worse in the 
name of fiscal austerity. No, Mr. Speaker, we should look at these 
programs and ask ourselves: Are these programs working? Are they doing 
the job that they were designed to do? Are they succeeding or failing? 
And how can we make them work better? But that's not what we're doing.
  Do you know how many hearings we've had on SNAP in this Congress? Do 
you know how many the Agriculture Committee has held? None. That's 
right, the Agriculture Committee is about to cut $20 billion from SNAP, 
and we haven't had one single hearing. Yet there are 20 new members of 
the Agriculture Committee in this Congress, 20 new members who deserve 
the right to learn about these issues, including the details of SNAP 
and the impact of these cuts.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not how we should be approaching this program. 
We should be holding hearings; we should ask questions; we should be 
thoughtful; and we should look at the program in an honest way, and our 
goal should be to end hunger now. Unfortunately, this bill, as written, 
is more about protecting big agribusiness and corporate welfare than it 
is about protecting hungry Americans who need help today.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to do something about hunger in America. I've 
urged the administration to host a White House conference on food and 
nutrition to come up with a plan to end hunger now. Hopefully, they 
will act on that soon. But for today and tomorrow, we must protect SNAP 
from needless, unnecessary, and harmful cuts. We must stand for the 
most vulnerable in our country, and we must end hunger now and not make 
it worse.

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